Panel Adopts 15 Ideas For Schools Remedy

`Choice' 1 Of Desegregation Options

January 17, 1997|By RICK GREEN; Courant Staff Writer

After months of intense debate, a state panel Thursday recommended an array of actions to reduce racial segregation and improve schools in Connecticut, including allowing parents to choose what public school their children attend.

Although the final report from the Educational Improvement Panel is not due until next week, the group adopted 15 recommendations during a six- hour meeting Thursday. It will be up to the legislature and governor to act on those ideas, which could radically change public schools in Connecticut.

Consideration of the panel's recommendations is at the top of the legislature's agenda this year. Last summer, in a case known as Sheff vs. O'Neill, the state Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in Hartford's public schools violates the state constitution. The court told the legislature to come up with a remedy.

``We have assembled a responsive package with the goal of reducing racial isolation and of improving urban education,'' said state Education Commissioner Theodore S. Sergi, chairman of the panel.

``This is bold. It is historic,'' said state Rep. Lawrence Cafero Jr., R- Norwalk, a member of the panel. The panel will meet one more time next week after holding a final round of public hearings on Tuesday night.

As their centerpiece, panel members have approved a package that includes a number of ``choice'' options, which would result in more children going to public school outside of the town they live in. This includes a program allowing parents in one community to send their child to a public school in another, as well as increased funding for regional and charter schools.

In Hartford, for example, this could mean the number of students voluntarily bused in the Project Concern program to suburban schools could quadruple, from about 600 children to more than 2,000.

Other key recommendations include expanded preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds and proposals to provide more money for struggling school districts. Additional funds would pay for more teachers, as well as remedial and alternative school programs. Expansion of adult education and the popular family resource centers, which help young and inexperienced parents, are also called for in the recommendations.

Included is a proposal for ``increased accountability for all'' that recommends giving the Hartford schools six months to demonstrate progress. Under the proposal, troubled school districts could be forced to reorganize if they do not improve.

Throughout the Sheff case, the link between poverty and poor school performance was a recurrent theme. To address that issue, a number of broad, still largely vague, recommendations to revitalize Connecticut's cities are in the proposal. Among other ideas, the recommendations call for more financing of affordable housing in the suburbs, as well as economic development initiatives and job training in the cities.

There was no price tag on the panel's recommendations, which could be costly. Some panel members said they will immediately begin lobbying for support in the legislature and in their communities.

``Most of the major issues have bipartisan support,'' said state Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's education committee.

``This is going next week to the legislature. I, for one, am going to work very hard to have our report adopted,'' he said.

Another panel member, state NAACP President Benjamin Andrews, spoke of a grass-roots campaign to pressure legislators to support the proposals.

``This is the mere beginning,'' he said.

Clearly, however, the ``public school choice'' plan is the most controversial. Even among panel members, opinions ranged from eliminating school district boundaries to removing race and poverty from the question.

The panel settled on a recommendation that initially focuses on students in the 12 communities that have a school population of 45 percent or more of students of color. The proposal would allow students from these towns to go to school in the neighboring town of their choice, provided there is space available in that town's school system.

Under the plan, districts would receive additional state aid to pay for expanding schools and the transportation of students. However, communities that don't have room for more students would not be required to take students. Children would not be displaced from schools in their own town, and the program would be voluntary.

State Sen. Judith Freedman, R- Westport, said she wasn't sure she could support the choice plan.

``We missed the point on that,'' she said, saying more effort should go into improving city schools, and not figuring out how to send the children elsewhere.

``Until you can improve the school system with the greatest amount of problems . . . we are [not] offering all children an equal opportunity,'' said Freedman, who also is co-chairwoman of the legislature's education committee. ``We have avoided the question of improving the system that is in failure.''